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cared for the books and the coverlets for the stands on the bimah in the middle of the synagogue and for the parochet on the ark, the wine-colored curtains with the lions on them.
    “I went to the synagogue on Sabbaths and holidays and sat with my father and my brother and our friends, and saw Reb Binyomin moving about on the bimah or reading from the Torah scroll or sometimes opening the ark doors to replace the Torah scrolls and closing them and standing amoment or two longer than anyone else facing the ark after the final swaying of the curtains and lions.
    “He lived across the courtyard from us; we had to pass his apartment before we left our house. Later that week my father gave him the drawings. The next day Reb Binyomin asked to see me in his apartment.
    “My father went with me after we had eaten supper. It was a freezing winter evening. We walked on the sidewalk skirting the courtyard and rang Reb Binyomin’s bell, and he answered and brought us inside.
    “It was a dark apartment. Two rooms and a kitchen. We sat at the kitchen table and his wife served us tea and cinnamon sugar cookies. I copied one of the drawings.
    “Reb Binyomin cleared his throat, and wanted to know how long I had been drawing. I said the first drawing just appeared when I saw the book in my father’s bookshop. Reb Binyomin asked if I had heard of Bezalel, builder of the tabernacle during the wilderness wandering? Of course I had heard of Bezalel. Then, asking my father to be so kind as to stay behind, he sent me home.
    “My father arrived about a half hour later. He said that Reb Binyomin liked the drawings. Why it took half an hour for Reb Binyomin to say that, I never found out.
    “And that was where it ended.”
    Noah lay back. I could actually see movements of flesh and bone chase themselves across the contours of his face. In a near-empty voice he asked for a glass of water, and I went to the bathroom across the hall. The cabinet was full of over-the-counter drugs. I filled a glass and brought it tohim and he drank the water slowly and I put the empty glass on the desk. He gazed out the window, then looked at me. He moved his spindly legs under the sheet.
    “I very tired,” he said. “But I glad you came.”
    “I am glad you came.”
    “Better you should give me a lesson now so Aunt Sarah will not think you do not earn money.”
    “Your Aunt Sarah thought I would have to listen much more than I would have to talk.”
    “Maybe you should give me very short lesson.”
    I smiled at that.
    We worked on his grammar. When we were done I asked him for a drawing for Rachel. He opened and closed his left arm and drew two deer asleep in front of a bed of some primitive flowers.
    “Thanks you,” he said.
    “Thank you,” I said. Then, “Wednesday?”
    “Wednesday, yes,” he said.
    I left the door open and went down the hallway to the kitchen. His aunt and uncle were seated at the table.
    “I gave him his lesson,” I said. “He’s coming to me on Wednesday.”
    His aunt said, “There was nothing else?”
    “He gave me a drawing for my sister.”
    “What did he say to you?” his uncle asked.
    “He told me about his family, about Reb Binyomin, and his drawings.”
    “My sister wrote us about that,” his aunt said. “But he doesn’t talk about … anything.”
    “You should know how he carried on,” the uncle said. “From Tisha B’Av and on. He cries.”
    “Please,” I said. “If he wants to tell you anything at all, he will.”
    Noah’s aunt accompanied me to the door.
    “Something happened to him on Tisha B’Av.”
    I did not say anything.
    There was a hopelessness about her. “Well, good-bye.”
    I went down the stairs and to the street.
    The sky was bright with searing heat. Pigeons scratched in fallen leaves. A few old people sprawled on the parkway benches. I went along past Schenectady Avenue and then Troy and Albany and Kingston. I realized that I had long gone past the street I would normally have